1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to apparatuses for immobilizing a patient during treatment of cancer and other diseases. More particularly, the present invention relates to immobilizers having a number of sections. More particularly still, the present invention is related to immobilizers that have inflatable bladders in the sections of the immobilizer.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98.
Cancer is an ailment affecting thousands of Americans every year. Various forms of treatment of cancer exist, including radiation treatment. Radiation treatment can be external, internal or systematic. In external radiation treatment, radiation that destroys cancer cells comes from a machine outside the body of a patient. The machine is directed to the cancerous region of the patient and radioactive particles are shot into the body of the patient. The radioactive particles destroy both healthy and cancerous tissues. Thus, a patient treated with external radiation therapy will have wounds that must heal due to the destruction of healthy and cancerous tissues during external radiation treatment.
Internal radiation treatment uses radiation that is placed inside the patient's body or inside cancerous tissue. The radiation is in the form of radioactive materials that are contained in an implant. The implant is placed directly in the body of the patient. Thus, in internal radiation treatment, part of the patient is radioactive where the implant is located, and care must be taken not to expose care givers and others to radiation.
In systematic radiation treatment, radiative materials such as iodine 131 and strontium 89 are ingested by the patient or injected into the body of the patient. Thus, the radiative materials travel throughout the body of the patient, making the patient radioactive. In systemic radiation treatment, great care must be taken not to expose others to the radiation that is contained within the patient's body.
One alternative to using radiation treatment is to use external-beam treatment to kill cancerous cells in a patient. External beam treatment uses high-intensity light to shrink or destroy cancerous tissues. In addition to eliminating exposure to radiation of the patient, external beams allow one to pinpoint the cancerous tissues within the body of the patient and destroy only the cancerous tissues. Thus, healthy cells are not destroyed while destroying cancerous tissues. Moreover, neither the patient nor anyone else is exposed to any sort of radiation during external beam treatment of cancer.
In order to pinpoint cancerous tissues within the body of a patient, the patient must be placed in a fixed position. This fixed location must be repeated for every treatment session so as to repeatedly attack the pinpointed regions of cancerous tissue. In external beam treatment, it is important that the same regions are pinpointed in each successive treatment session. Current methods of external beam treatment for cancer use moldable cushions that are custom-made for each patient. These moldable cushions create several problems. First, the cushions take up a large amount of physical space. Because the cushions are custom-made for each patient, this use of a large space is magnified because the number of cushions needed is multiplied each time a new patient needs external beam treatment for cancer. Another problem with moldable cushions is that they are not effective in keeping the patient in a fixed position over multiple sessions because the cushions have wiggle room. Thus, a patient may be in a slightly different position in one session than another, which can cause great difficulties in the treatment with external beams. Additionally, the moldable cushions do not account for weight loss or weight gain by the patient between treatment sessions. Thus, if a patient has gained or lost weight between one session and another, the cushion will put the patient in a position different from the previous session that will effect the external beam treatment of cancer. Thus, a need has arisen for a patient immobilizing apparatus that has the ability to fix a patient in the same location over multiple sessions of treatment regardless of weight loss or weight gain.
Various patents have issued relating to patient immobilizers. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,216,385, issued on May 15, 2007 to Hill, discloses an inflatable cushion for use in a system and method in supporting the knees and legs of a person during surgery that includes an inflatable bladder that can move from a collapsed state to an expanded state. A bladder port communicates with a source of inflating fluid. The system includes the source of pressurized fluid and a valve assembly to switchably control the inflation and deflation of the bladder. The bladder may have a removable cover extending around the bladder, and the bladder may have side pleats to assist in expanding with the cover having corresponding accordion folds. The method involves placing a patient on a surgical table, decompressing the patient's spine to a flat back/drop knee position, interposing the bladder between the table and the patient's knees and advancing the knees to a full prone position by inflating the bladder.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,367, issued on Jan. 16, 1990 to Heimreid et al., discloses a system of separately adjustable pillows that is characterized by separately inflatable and deflatable containers which may be emptied or filled from a connected source with a pressurized fluid, via a manifold which is provided with valves for each container.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,327,724, issued on Dec. 11, 2001 to Sharrock et al., discloses an inflatable positioning device that includes a pump, a tube extending from the pump, a valve intermediate the length of the tube and a non-rectangular inflatable pillow connected to the end of the tube remote from the pump. The non-rectangular inflatable pillow is dimensioned for positioning portions of a patient's body during surgery.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,522,103, issued on Jun. 4, 1996 to Kier et al., discloses a system for supporting a bed-ridden patient while that patient uses a bed pan that includes a body-supporting section and a foot-supporting section which co-operate so as to maintain a proper and desired relative orientation among the patient's legs, hips and spine. The body-supporting section is inflatable, and the fully-inflated height of the body-supporting section is greater than the height of the foot-supporting section to provide versatility to the system. The body-supporting section is coated with lubricant to facilitate sliding that section under a patient.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,584,730, issued on Apr. 29, 1986 to Rajan, discloses a device for stabilizing the pelvis of a lying patient in a preselected angular position relative to a conventional flat bed that includes a generally disc-shaped body with two basically parallel planar surfaces. The body is intended to be placed between the lower extremities of the patient and is designed with a cavity, which extends from the edge of the body toward its center and conforms to and is somewhat bigger than the contours of the patient's pelvis as seen from the side, and has parts protruding from the respective planar surfaces, and preferably arranged in pairs on opposite sides of the body. The protruding parts are arranged to support the body far enough above the bed to give room for one extremity between the bed and the planar surface facing the bed while the other extremity rests on the opposite planar surface, thereby providing some moving space for the extremities between the protruding parts. In the cavity, supporting surfaces are arranged to support the lumbar region of the patient on one side and on the other side the hip bones of the patient, whereby the pelvis is stabilized essentially at a right angle to the bed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,550, issued on Nov. 10, 1998 to Hauger et al., discloses a moldable vacuum cushion for positioning a patient during radiation therapy treatment that includes an indexing bar with indexing pins to allow the attached cushion to be quickly, easily, accurately, and repeatably indexed on a baseplate or treatment table. The indexing bar may be releasably mounted on a frame member fixed to the cushion or may be directly mounted on the cushion.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that immobilizes a patient during cancer treatment.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that more precisely places a patient during cancer treatment.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that avoids problems of changes in femoral location of patients due to weight loss or weight gain.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that compensates for breathing of a patient during cancer treatment.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that can precisely mold to the contours of the bodies of many different patients.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that automatically fixes a patient in an immobile position with pneumatic and software devices.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a reading of the attached specification and appended claims.